Abstract
Narratives of 3 1/2-to 9 1/2-year-old children were searched for AND coordinations. Only half of the AND utterances of the youngest compared to four-fifths of those of the oldest children were fully formed, syntactically correct coordinations. The latter were classified as phrasal coordinations, redundant sententials (i.e., potential phrasals), or nonredundant sentential coordinations. Sentential coordinations predominated, especially among older children. Direction of redundancy (or potential redundancy) was important: forward forms predominated over backward forms. Differences in form of the children's coordinations often reflected differences in meaning; this was true for backward direction forms of phrasal versus sentential coordination, although not for most forward direction forms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bloom, L., Lahey, M., Hood, L., Lifter, K., & Fiess, K. (1980). Complex sentences Acquisition of syntactic connectives and the semantic notions they encode.Journal of Child Language, 7, 235–261.
Brown, R. (1973).A first language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
de Villiers, J., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Hakuta, K. (1977). Deciding among theories of the development of coordination in child speech,Stanford Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 13, 118–125.
Fienberg, S. (1980).The analysis of cross-classified categorical data. Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press.
Gleitman, L. (1965). Coordinating conjunctions in English.Language, 41, 260–293.
Greenfield, P., & Dent, C. (1982). Pragmatic factors in children's phrasal coordination.Journal of Child Language, 9, 425–443.
Hakuta, K., deVilliers, J., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (1982) Sentence coordination in Japanese and English.Journal of Child Language, 9, 193–207.
Jeremy, R. (1978). Use of coordinate sentences with the conjunction “and” for describing temporal and locative relations between events.Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 7, 135–150.
Lakoff, G., & Peters, S. (1969). Phrasal conjunction and symmetric predicates. In D. Reibel & S. Shane (Eds.),Modern studies in English. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Lust, B. (1977). Conjunction reduction in child language.Journal of Child Language, 4, 257–287.
Lust, B. (1981). Coordinating studies of coordination: A reply to Ardery.Journal of Child Language, 8, 457–470.
Lust, B., & Mervis, C. (1980). Development of coordination in the natural speech of young children.Journal of Child Language, 7, 279–304.
Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1983)Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child's narrative. New York: Plenum.
Tager-Flusberg, H., deVilliers, J., & Hakuta, K. (1983). The development of sentence coordination. In S. Kuczaj (Ed.),Language development: Syntax and semantics (Vol 1). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The authors would like to thank Michael Bruce-Lockhart for the development and use of the NARRAN software package. For more information about NARRAN or its availability, write to the first author. This research was supported by National Science and Engineering Research Council grant A-0513 to the first author.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peterson, C., McCabe, A. The structure ofAND coordinations in children's narratives. J Psycholinguist Res 16, 467–490 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01073273
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01073273